The Wooden Sky "Every Child A Daughter, Every Moon A Sun"

This arrived during the same soft section of the release schedule that gave me Killing Joke and one more yet to come.  Completely opposite end of the musical spectrum from the industrialism of KJ.  I was glad I played this first, you know, like foods and wines, you start light and work your way to heavy.  I had not heard of Wooden Sky and can't recall how they popped up on my radar, but I am glad they did.  It's the Canadian band's third album, so I decided to check some of their homegrown reviewers opinions and found a "love it or hate it" attitude, no middle ground.  The positives hailed the band and record as one of the country's best in recent memory, praising the subtleties, lyrics, and overall beauty.  The negatives compared it to waterboarding or a solo space travel excursion of seventy years, ie. predictable and bland.  I understand the negatives' "boring" description as the first spin for the album was a complete, uninterrupted one.  The first ten+ minutes were wonderful, the remaining twenty-eight were homogeneous, excluding the one doo-wop styled number, though it still retained some sameness in delivery.  The positives took effect with shorter bites of the album, two or three tracks at a time, allowing for the tranquility and pastoral moods to shine, like this...

But it's not all quiet pieces.  There are a couple that reminded me of a Neil Young or Tom Petty tune, electric guitars and whine.  This was posted on YouTube two months ago and had 41 views when I found it...



Man, I love the Internet for just this kind of discovery... 

The vocals are front and center, very pronounced and direct.  You can hear the keyboard atmospherics on both videos.  Fiddle, mandolin, banjo, cello all beg for an alt-country or folk classification but I find that hard to do.  It's a collage of many things, just look at the various RIYLs I found for it;  Fleet Foxes, The Jayhawks, The Avett Bros. and Ryan Adams.

Sorry, domestic readers, it's another import, but I did see a site from NY that will send you one for $15 and some change.  I know I've already enlightened a couple of you to the band via FB, and I'm certain more of you will agree to the worthiness of your support for The Wooden Sky.